Dust clouds, cheering fans and the treacherously slippery gravel roads of KwaZulu-Natal’s central and south coast sugar cane fields characterised the 54th edition of the season-opening Total Rally.
In the photo: J-P Damseaux/Grant Martin in action
The thousands of spectators who lined the gravel roads over the two days of action were rewarded with action aplenty and high-speed thrills as befitting a series as competitive as this.
Contested by 32 crews in this the first round the 2012 South African Rally Championship, the event comprised of 16 stages over 196km of timed rallying. For this year, the event organisers, the Natal Motorcycle and Car Club (NMCC) and Total South Africa, brought the sport to the people of Durban with a spectacular Super Special Stage run in the area around the Moses Mabhida Stadium. The Super Special Stages was run on Friday night and repeated on Saturday afternoon as the event’s grand finale.
Finishing the event in first place overall was the Ford Fiesta S2000 of Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton, followed by Johnny Gemmell/Carolyn Swan (Toyota Auris S2000) with Charl Wilken/Greg Godrich’s Ford Fiesta S2000 claiming the final position of the winners’ podium.
The fight for the rally win was very much a three-way battle, but mechanical maladies, driver errors and punctures saw this enticing fight come to a premature end. Cronje was left to spar with Gemmell for the victory, and the Ford driver determinedly to outpaced Gemmell on the final two speed tests of the event.
Interestingly, the all-new Volkswagen Polo S2000s of Enzo Kuun/Guy Hodgson, Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries and Hans Weijs jnr/Bjorn Degandt made a successful debut in the South African Rally Championship to push their Ford and Toyota rivals throughout the weekend.
Next up… Team Total will next tackle the forest gravel roads surrounding Sabie, Nelspruit and White River for the Sasol Rally taking place on 20 and 21 April.
For more information, visit www.total.co.za